Did we win? - Lemmy.zip

Lemmy

Making users wait 24 hours doesn’t improve security; it’s an anti-competitive change designed to make the Google Play store seem like less of a hassle in comparison.

I can actually see where it can improve security against scammers trying to scam elderly and non-tech savvy people.

  • Scammer tries to get someone to install malware from their site
  • Victim isn’t familiar with sideloading, but scammer instructs them
  • Victim hits the first time 24 hour block and has to restart and wait
  • The restart alone breaks contact with the scammer, scam thwarted

For the rest of us that know our way around Android, it’s just a one time annoyance, after completing all the steps to enable sideloading, you won’t have to wait 24 hours anymore.

The problem with this is that most of the apps used in scams are already on the play store. I haven’t ever seen a scam which requests the user to download a third party app, although I’m sure it’s happened on occasion.

My point is that this won’t stop most scams, and primarily cause annoyance for actual power users.